Status Incubate welcomes first startup, CryptoStrikers
Blockchain-powered CryptoStrikers developing crypto-collectibles platform for Web3
Today, I’m very pleased to announce CryptoStrikers will be the first startup accepted into Status Incubate, our incubator dedicated to decentralization. CryptoStrikers is developing a crypto-collectibles platform where sports fans can buy and trade cryptocards of their favorite football stars, ahead of the 2018 World Cup set.
Moving Web3 forward
For the true fan, there’s a certain magic to sports cards. As a kid, I loved basketball and had many a heated battle negotiating over the value of, say, a Grant Hill rookie card with my friends. Like CryptoKitties, CryptoStrikers is proof of concept for the relevance of Web3 for consumers and a fun, inviting way to familiarize people with Ethereum. That’s one of the big reasons all of us at Status Incubate are delighted to welcome them into the Status family.
CryptoStrikers looks to disrupt the growing, highly fragmented collectibles market by offering digital sports cards for a Web3 experience. Led by smart contract developer Gianni Settino, the first engineer hire at recently acquired DRAFT, and Benn Gurton, recently Head of Biz Dev at Sportradar US, the world’s largest sports data provider, CryptoStrikers distinguished itself from many, many applicants with their strong founder expertise and compelling vision.
Today, CryptoStrikers is launching a set of football stars collectibles ahead of the 2018 World Cup, which kicks off on June 14th. Their long-term goals, however, go much further. An open source project, they aim to unlock a range of experiences, inviting the community to build games and applications on top of the CryptoStrikers platform. Decentralization is the key. “We’re really excited to see how the community responds to what we’ve built. Our illustrators have done a tremendous job with the player cards. The app is supported with some cool tech, with smart contracts governing all key interactions,” Gianni said to me this week. “Our hope is that this game brings together users and lets them experience the meaning of true digital ownership in a decentralized global ecosystem.”
At the core of CryptoStrikers, and one of the reasons why we’re so excited about its potential, is how the team plans to use Ethereum to bring transparency to what has been an often opaque market. In the current Web, you’d bid for that must-have Magic Johnson card up on eBay. Even if you won the auction, you’d never truly be certain about its authenticity or its provenance. But thanks to the advantages of the smart contract, CryptoStrikers can bring a new layer of transparency to the collectibles market. It is the transparency and, in a related way, the radically new kind of trust created by blockchain economics that presents a new paradigm in the crypto-collectibles space as well as Web3 generally.
Again, it’s a thrill for us to have Gianni, Benn, and team join Status Incubate, especially since the World Cup is about to kick off. To celebrate this milestone, we’re partnering with CryptoStrikers to give away 250 Premium Packs on a first-come, first-serve basis. Each pack contains four cards of your favorite global football stars. To receive your free pack of cards, click here.
CryptoStrikers is also available on Status, so if you haven’t already, be sure to request early access here and start playing. We will also be giving away special free packs to those who join in on the Status public channel #cryptostrikers!
To learn more about how decentralization and the properties of digital sports cards inspired CryptoStrikers founders, read Gianni’s blog, ‘Why We’re Putting Sports Cards On The Blockchain.’
If you’re an ambitious blockchain entrepreneur with an amazing vision and a unique product idea, we’d love to see you apply to Status Incubate.
